This PC is fir bitcoin mining, not gaming. Because of how bitcoin mining works the GPU's don't need all of the PCI-e x16 bandwidth, so they can be connected with little PCI-e extenders (look like IDE cables (except the ones on the top rack witch are blue)).

Yep, and much faster than cpu's
GPU's are like thousands of tiny little cpu's working together. The total computing power adds up to be significantly more than a cpu, but it's much more difficult to program not-so-straightforward tasks for them. Fortunately mining is a very efficient task for gpu's

Not lucrative at all, the only way people make money now is by buying new miners, using them to mine for a few months and then selling the miner while it's still considered valuable.

They only release a certain amount of bitcoins in a certain time and change the mining difficulty to accomadate how much they want released. So as more people mine, the harder they make it to mine bitcoins meaning it becomes less and less profitable. One of the biggest drawbacks now is that depending on where you live the power to run your machine can be more than what you ever hope to mine using it.

I don't know that much about mining, but you'll want good AMD cards (there architecture is better for mining) 280-290x. The rest of the system doesn't really matter as long as it supports the cards. Then you set up a mining wallet and let the gpu's generate bitcoins. But it might not be such a good idea because the processing to currency value ratio keeps dropping :/

It's not a good idea at all now. for one bit coins have past their peak and two to do this the amount of power you would need would exceed the outcome. you would end up paying more for power than what you would make.

Buying graphics cards at max price when they first come out is pretty dumb and only the "pc masterrace" faggots do that every year
you can buy it, still new, for less than half the price if you wait a year, especially right before/right after a new version is released. I got my 660gtx for 175 when the titan came out. Hardware is pretty far ahead of the curve as far as what video games demand from it

Too bad a 660 can't run **** anymore. Hardware is most definitely not ahead of the curve. Seemingly nothing can run 4K and it's really difficult to max modern games on multiscreen setups. People pay the premium to get the newest cards since said newest cards are still ahead of the curve. If you wait a year, you pay a lot less, but by then you'll get left behind.

if my old comp with 570 can still run everything while totally maxed out (with FXAA and mostly no other AA, everything else is maxed out in every game) in 1080p (well 30 fps, but only games like AC4 and Crysis3 drops a bit below that) than i believe 660 can still "run **** ".

My 660 plays BF3 maxed with an average of 55fps. Can't run **** ....Shut up you narrow minded bigot. I used to play Skyrim on an old GT 440 medium setting and had a great time. Not everyone needs top of the line to have fun, or multiscreens for that matter.

Regardless of how many screens you have or the resolution you play games at, older cards run newer games worse and worse, and you HAVE to spend quite a bit of cash to play the latest **** at max settings. If you are fine with lowered settings and lower FPS, then what was the point of blowing loads of money on a gaming PC anyways when the end result was no better than a $200 console? 660 is no longer that great of a card, and BF3 is no longer a great benchmark. If you don't want "top of the line", then just get a console. Pretty good and really cheap, not to mention the access to said console's exclusives. There's no reason to get angry at anyone else. It's not our fault you didn't futureproof a bit more. If you spend more now, you save more later, but I understand of course that there's point of overkill.

Well with money being tight, and budget gaming being popular...the 660 does just fine. Plays the games i typically play on high-max settings. Seeing how it'll probably be 2-3 years before any games come out that I actually care to play on medium+ settings It'll do.

'Ahead of the curve' refers to being anywhere ahead of the peak of a bell curve. What you described is at the extreme end. In terms of the general gaming market a 660 is still definitely ahead of the curve. You can pay a premium for new hardware ( *cough* Mac Users *cough*) but you will absolutely hit the issue of diminishing returns, which is fine if you have the cash and don't particularly care about cost-effectiveness but for the majority of people this isn't true.

The curve as a whole has been held massively back by console hardware. Seemingly nothing can run 4k at the moment because there isn't enough financial insentive to properly develop the hardware for 4k yet since only a small market share currently wants it and has enough disposable income for it. No game company currently develops with 4k resolutions being high on their priority list (And the first ones that do will be ones pushing terrible games and trying to cover the fact up)

Very true, but for people that like to mod and get their games a beautiful as possible (like me) need lots of vram and gpu power. And if we wait, newer games and mods come out. We have to have something that is better than anything officially released, it's an addiction, an expensive addiction

The 660 has good value for the price but it is not that great for maxing out modern games at a decent fps. I upgraded from a 660 TI to a 770 and there was a very noticeable difference in performance in everything I play

If you meant 750M is equal to 650 then you cannot be more wrong. It is so much below the performance of a 650

but if you meant 750 (not M, but desktop full card) equals to 650 then you are pretty much right. 750 is slightly better tho, but the difference is less than 10%... but the 750 is better in performance to power draw.

Nope not yet. They've released a "Hangar Module" that allows features a hangar and a ship that you can mess around and see how everything works. Looks pretty sweet, they're about to release a dogfighting module soon as well, but the full game is still not ready.

Every time I think of upgrading my (ancient) laptop, I just think "hold on. Technology is awesome now. But if I wait a year, technology will be SUPER awesome, and things that cost heaps now will be probably cheap by then. So why buy one now?"

okay so all i have is a laptop and i'm trying to build a part list for a desktop. i'm also poor as **** . would anyone take a look at my part list and give opinions and maybe some modifications that don't increase price too much? heres the list pcpartpicker.com/p/2XdD0

Hmm, I will give you my input on this build (fyi I'm an IT professional and broke an overclocking record once if that means anything). I am an AMD fanboy and have a watercooled FX-8350 myself. Anyway my biggest concerns with that build:

Compare what you are spending here; $130 on a crappier CPU with a heatsink or one GOOD CPU for $150. Spend an extra $20 bucks, dump the coolermaster heat sink and you got yourself a pretty good, 8 core CPU geared towards gaming. The FX-4300 is just a bit dated and underpowered for gaming, even overclocked it's not that special. i would hugely advise against that FX-4300. It's just not that great vs. the newer model FX-8320.

2) I agree with tumblball on the hard drive. You should go for maybe a 1TB instead. Newegg just had a deal, like $65 or so for a 1TB Seagate Barracuda, seems like you are spending close to the same amount on one half the size. For gaming, you want the bigger hard drives, especially if you play MMOs.

3) Biostar motherboard, I don't think I've even heard of that company. I would go for a Gigabyte, MSI, or Asus for a motherboard. They probably have something for the same price. I never heard of that brand and don't like unkown/lesser names for computer parts.

I'm not too crazy about the graphics card, either, but considering your budget it should do pretty well. It's not going to run BF4 max settings but you will run most games pretty decent, it's not exactly a cheap graphics card but not the greatest. The case looks nice, if possible, though, try to pick a case that comes with the screws/standoffs/washers you need otherwise you'll have to bug those. A good brand name case will usually come with all the screws and everything you will need.

I got to disagree with you there, I think hard drive space is a necessity in today's work as of 2014. I think he does need at LEAST a 1TB drive. The reason being is it will last him a long time before having to upgrade or do a tedious hard drive transfer if he runs out of space. Myself, I have a 120GB Corsair Force GT SSD and a 2TB Seagate Barracuda. In my case, I work on my PC as well as design, do 3D modeling, and program games, so I run of out space very quick. I previously has two 250GB drives and ran out of space on both very fast.

But even so, as a gamer, you want a big hard drive. Number one, no matter which drive you buy, you lose that "allocated" space when you first buy it. He wants to get a 500GB but because of the way Windows architecture works (and one gigabyte actually being around 1024MB instead of 1000) he is actually going to get around 485GB. Second, hes building this for games, he's most likely going to have more than a single game on here. Look at BF4. It's 30GB without the additional maps. Titanfall is 48GBs. If he got both those games for example, he's used up nearly one forth of his space already. The Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls expansion is 25GB alone and that's not even a very high end game. WoW is around 25GB.

If you take the average 25GB install size, he can only fit about 10-15 games on a hard drive. That's not very many, especially if he goes on a shopping spree on Steam when there's a sale. New age games like Bioshock 3 are already down to $10 bucks which is a 30GB install. Then games like Skyrim with mods take up even more space. Bottom line, as a gamer you want abig hard drive unless you don't care about deleting games you are done playing.

I myself have 800 gigabytes, but its 2 CPUs, each having 400gigabytes. I only use my first, which is pretty much always full, so i constantly have to delete random **** to make space. Usually because i torrent a lot of movies and games. But like a normal person, i dont think he will be playing 15 games at once. I only have 3-5 games installed, WoW being one of them, although its a private Wrath server.

I cant say i ever played BF4, i always thought that would lag the **** out of my computer. I only have games like skyrim, wow, apb reloaded, gta iv, world of tanks, and war thunder installed. Plus age of empires, which holds barely 2 gigs.

I also have 3D software and game software, like unity, cryengine, and UDK installed. Although since i rarely use them, they dont end up taking much space.

I doubt he is using his computer for 3D modeling, considering he doesnt know **** about computers. I assume he just wants to play a game like minecraft. Whats more important is his RAM and graphic card. If he wants space, he could buy an external harddrive and upload all his porn on there, its like 300 gigs in size, at least mine is. Some even go to 2TB, which is enough for a lifetime of porn.

Ram is top priority. I wont be able to function most of the programs i use, like, video editing, photoshop, 20 tabs of youtube videos, etc.
Id say at least get 8GB of ram, that would run most things smoothly.

Second is graphics card, most essential for gaming, mines not the best card in the world, and my games suffer because of this. Cant go beyond 40 FPS, and goes down to 28 on max setting. I wish i had a better graphics card where everything played smooth as ass.

Then lastly you got space. Its not essential because every computer now a days have to meet a minimum of 400 gigabytes of storage. Although that is the cheapest computer you could possibly get. Most computers would have around 600-800gb.

I'd double the RAM for the extra $100, you'll do it eventually.
I'd also go with a full tower instead of mid. 1, they're a lot better looking most of the time, 2, if you ever upgrade you'll have the room. Here's the one I got. It's nice and decently priced. www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146067

You can probably get rid of that cooler and put the money to something better, maybe a better CPU, you won't really need extra cooling unless you're going to OC, which if you just buy a better CPU you won't really need to.

This build is a bit better than my PC and it runs the current AAA games nicely, bf4 75fps(my refresh rate) on medium/high, Titanfall at 60fps on high, etc

If you go for an ssd (which I recommend because holy **** your computer starts up fast), get 128 gb. I already used 50+ gb on mine, and all I loaded on it were software tools.
Good job getting an HDD as well. Boot from the ssd, store on the HDD.

1. Skip the SSD. Its not really necessary but if you really do want one, install one when you have more money.

2. Maybe get a cheaper case. Sure an expensive one looks flashy and all, but if you're on a budget, performance is more important that aesthetics.

3. Get a better processor. You're creating a bottleneck with your graphics card. I'd advise and AMD FX8320, you can OC it to get the same clock speeds as the 8350, especially with the aftermarket cooler.

4. Get a higher output PSU. The 600W would work really well and leave some spare capacity for any additional upgrades in the future.

5. Look at the price for a 1TB drive. Its usually not more than ~$20 but it doubles your capacity. Stick with the 7200rpm speed though. (this one is up to yourself really.)

id say rather than investing in a expensive cpu cooler like that, larger hdd space would be more worth it. if you have a cool case, then the stock fan should be more than enough. www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148840 this hdd is what im using and so far its been fine.
i'd say your tower should be good enough to run smoothly without any real concern about overheating unless you plan to do overclocking and stuff. but otherwise that's a really solid build. fantastic price for that gpu as well.
but then again i dont really have that much experience and have built only one pc so i wouln't count on my words and you should take it with a grain of salt :p